


Love Actually Is All Around

by Pixie (magnetgirl)



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Crew as Family, Gen, Headcanon, Holidays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-22 22:51:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17068685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnetgirl/pseuds/Pixie
Summary: for the 25 Days ofVoyager2018 challenge I answered the question “How does the crew of Voyager celebrate the holiday season?”





	Love Actually Is All Around

**The Doctor**  sees the holidays — any holidays — as an opportunity to sing. Preferably in front of an audience, but he's just as often caught humming to himself. Each year he debuts a new arrangement of an old Earth classic and precedes his performance with a "brief" explanation of its significance to both the culture of its time and  _Voyager_ 's journey.

While  **Seven**  had access to the cultural knowledge of millions, the Borg consider mythology, religion, ritual, and art to be flotsam best ignored. As Seven regains her humanity she considers the crew's many and varied ways of celebrating their traditions an exploration of spirituality and slowly adopts the ones that hold most meaning for herself.

 **Harry**  uses the holiday season to show his friends how much he appreciates them. For a month or more leading up to the Old Earth New Year crew will find small gifts left at work stations or beamed surreptitiously into their quarters, or log into their ration account to find they've been gifted a special meal or some extra hours on the holodeck. The gifts are never signed, and he refuses to confirm, but everyone knows it's Harry.

 **Neelix**  takes holidays very seriously. He spends his first few months on  _Voyager_  binging the holiday calendar and customs of every Federation race represented on the ship, as well as those most celebrated on Starfleet vessels regardless of crew manifest. He provides a special holiday cuisine from somewhere in the Federation nearly every day, punctuated by recipes from the Delta Quadrant as his personal Holiday Database grows. He also delights in reading stories aloud, presenting historic films (his favorites are those made by the old Earth visionary 'Netflix' who he likes to imagine is a kindred spirit if not a secret relative due to their similarity in name), and recreating scenes on the holodeck.

 **B'Elanna**  doesn't like Human holidays any more than she does Klingon holidays — less, actually, as they just bring up memories of her Human family looking askance that she would be included. She greets any expression of seasonal cheer with a Scrooge-like scowl and only shows up to the parties because she hates to see Harry sad and it's a good excuse to get drunk. But a year and a half into their relationship Tom discovers she secretly has a stocking, quilted red satin with her name across the top in gaudy purple and gold glitter, that she hangs up every year because her father gave it to her.

As much as  **Janeway**  loves to push boundaries and explore new civilizations, she also loves traditions, parties, and reminders of home. She wholeheartedly endorses the efforts of her crew to spread holiday cheer as long as it doesn't interfere in ship's business — too much. Afterwards, she tends to become a little melancholy and morose as she thinks of holidays past and absent loved ones, but her ship family takes note and take care to allow her space to grieve, but not to wallow.  

Janeway is not the only member of the crew who becomes homesick around the holidays, nor is B'Elanna the only one to act out in response to the uptick in joyful expression, so  **Chakotay**  makes certain to be available to whomever needs someone to lend an ear, a shoulder to cry on, or an exercise in spirituality. He's particularly jolly at gatherings, loves to lead sing-alongs and is the first in line to decorate Neelix's sugar cookies (or more correctly, "sugar cookies"), but he also creates a quiet space for anyone who needs it.

 **Tom**  is tasked with creating  _Voyager_ 's end of the year gala, and each year it becomes more elaborate. To make the second one his best ever he used up two months of his own replicator rations — on top of the ones allotted by the command team — but after that the rest of the crew started donating rations up to a month in advance. Tom's first goal is to make everyone happy, his second is to include as many traditions from as many cultures as possible, and his third is to get Janeway and Chakotay under the mistletoe as often as he can. The current record is six times and he's hoping to double it.

Like Neelix,  **Kes**  is excited to explore as many cultural conventions as she can. But she also wants to create her own, their own, for the unique community of  _Voyager_. She studies, considers, and plots, borrowing ideas from planets across the galaxy, and comes to decide the collective goal of all these traditions is an expression of faith and love. And  _Voyager_  has that in spades.

 **Tuvok**  spends most of the holiday season on the bridge, keeping watch so everyone else can attend gatherings and take time to recognize their cultural traditions. Still, Janeway convinces him to participate in one event a year, Neelix sends him his own spin on Vulcan delicacies despite Tuvok's every effort to suggest he stop, and he's not left off Harry's gift list. For himself, Tuvok spends some time each month reflecting on his family, on Vulcan, on  _Voyager_ , and everywhere in between.  


End file.
